The Australian forest industry is investigating emerging opportunities in bioenergy, biochemicals and biomaterials produced from wood.

It is also seeking greater co-investment by governments in research and innovation in the wood fibre industry.

Paul Taylor says that of all the competing technologies, biochar is the obvious candidate for a place like Tasmania because of the synergies it has for forestry, farming and the renewable energy sector.

"You need to look at it from cradle to grave to make sure you are getting your biomass in a sustainable way, so you are not taking away from other uses for the biomass like compost or old growth forests and so on.

"And then you need to put it through a pyrolysis process which is simply thermal decomposition of that biomass in a way that has very low emissions.

"The output of those reactors are actually three things.

"You get gas, syngas which is combustible. you can make electricity out of it or run transport with it.

"You also get oils which are also combustible or can be used for other end-products like cosmetics or all the things we make out of carbon now.

"And then you end up with the biochar which you can put back into the soil.